A bit shocked having just come from winter and skiing, sleep was hard to come by in the August heat of the Rockies. Not in any particular rush, breakfast was leisurely and bikes were eventually packed and ready to go. Saying our thanks and goodbyes, we rolled into the centre of town. We promptly stayed for quite some time buying food, unexpectedly meeting friends (whom I knew from previous North American stays) and eating bagels.
This was the first adventure on my new bike. Only having ridden a hundred and thirty kilometres on it, I was keen to see how it would go. My hastily cobbled together luggage arrangement didn’t last long. We hadn’t even got out of town before a malfunction of my saddle bag stopped me in my tracks, a roadside repair was effected. It wasn’t to be the last time in the trip it was overloaded with food, but thankfully it was the last such mishap.
After waiting at a level crossing for a massive-by-NZ-standards, normal-by-North-American-standards train, we were on our way almost two hours after leaving the house. Definitely not in any rush – but we did want to cross the border and make Eureka that night, so that we did make the Whitefish Bike Retreat booking sometime over the approaching weekend.
This below is the route that we were to trace, clockwise, over the following twelve days. A combination of various defined routes, points to meet and spend time with friends, towns, remote backcountry gravel roads and some seal to link it altogether – it was excellent, as will become clear.
Taking a Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) alternate south out of town, we were soon past houses and riding gravel roads through forest. The highway was off on the other side of the Elk River, so our road was quiet – apart from the occasional train nearby. Trending downhill, there were still plenty of climbs to test our legs – neither of us having ridden loaded bikes any great distance for a while. We met our first other bikepackers of the trip – chat with all the interesting riders of their planned trips was good fun.
Crossing the Elk River (my head not in the space of cooling off in rivers, we missed a good stop) the lovely gravel ended and we were spat out at a gas station on a busy highway. It seemed time for ice cream and other rejuvenation. Further down the highway were meant to connect to back roads for the run to the border – but the main highway was too busy, so we turned off quickly for a quieter highway straight to the border. Mid-afternoon by this time, it had really heated up and a nagging hot wind slowed us on the mostly-but-for-two-notable-exceptions downhill to checkpoint.
We joined the actual GDMBR and soon hit the queues at the border crossing. Having cleared US immigration during transit in Los Angeles, the questions of our intentions were very mild. In fact, outlining our planned route the line of interrogation turned into jokes about hearing banjoes playing. Half-five and into Montana we were; first objective of the day complete, it was “only” about twenty kilometres to Eureka, food and a community campsite.
Gravel backroads took us off the highway, and provided plenty of rollers. Pace slowed, but eventually we got a tailwind and a significant downhill into town. Exhausted there was resting in a very small park, with its own menagerie of aggressive turkeys, before trying to find food. Pizza took an age, but then I would join a queue behind what seemed like a whole battalion of Californian wildfire-fighters (wild-firefighters seems a bit unruly; there’s probably a more correct name).
Down the road, right next to the Tobacco River, was the campground. With a few picnic tables and grass, it’s available by payment donation only and is near to the sorts of services those on the GDMBR need. Cycle tourists #4 through to #12 (?) were there for the night and more bikepacking chat ensued – sure was interesting hearing more and varied plans, and backgrounds. Poking around an adjacent compound of historic buildings scratched the itch to know slightly more of where we were. Strange American experience for the day was buying a sealed cup filled with frozen diary, putting it in some futuristic automated machine and out popped a thickshake – curious, so long as one wasn’t so inquisitive as to read the list of ingredients/chemicals.
The evening drew in and after a hot, long day – well, it was a hot night in a bivy bag punctuated by noisy traffic. Fantastic to be out biking in new places, tomorrow – wilderness!